• Name: Dmitry Shostakovich
• Birthday: 09/25/1906
• Birth Place: St. Petersburg, Russia
• Died: 08/09/1975
• Place of Death: Moscow, Russia
• Period: Modern
• Genre: Classical

Title	Release
Shostakovich: Piano Music W	2005
Shostakovich Plays Shostakovich, Vol. 2	2004
Dmitri Shostakovich: First Recordings	2003
Shostakovich: Piano Concertos; 3 Fantastic Dances; 5 Preludes & Fugues, Op. 87	2003
Composers Performing: Shostakovich, Vol. 1 W	2002
Dimitri Shostakovich: Best of Motion Picture Scores, Vol. 2	2000
Motion Picture Scores, Vol. 1	2000
Shostakovich Plays Shostakovich	2000
Dmitri Shostakovich: Self-Portrait	1999
Shostakovich Plays Shostakovich - Vol. 5	1998
Shostakovich: Cello Sonata/Piano Quintet	1998
Shostakovich Plays Shostakovich, Vol.2	1997
Shostakovich: Fantastic Dances Op5; Prelude & Fugue in Dm No24, Op87/24	1997
Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Quintet; String Quartet No. 2	1994
Dmitri Shostakovich Plays	1993
Dimitri Chostakovitch par lui-même
(63) String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73	1956
(82) Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 107
(105) Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67
(33) Preludes & Fugues (24), for piano, Op. 87	1958
(58) Quintet for piano & strings in G minor, Op. 57	1952
(99) Sonata for cello & piano in D minor, Op. 40 W	2008
(82) String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110	2006
(196) Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47
(79) Symphony No. 9 in E flat major, Op. 70	2008
(106) Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77 (published as Op. 99)	2005
(34) Symphony No. 2 in B flat major (To October), Op. 14	1993
(4) The Flea (The Bedbug), suite from the incidental music, Op. 19a	1985
(18) Hamlet, film score, Op. 116 (unrelated to incidental music)	1998
(4) The Silly Little Mouse, animated film score, Op. 56	1998
A Year is Like a Lifetime, suite from the film score, Op. 120a (assembled by Atovmyan)	2006
(2) Early Piano Pieces (3) (unfinished)	2005
(4) Pirogov, suite from the film score, Op. 76a (assembled by Atovmyan)	1998
Prelude for piano, in F major, Op. 34/23
The First Echelon, film score, Op. 99 W	2005
The Golden Hills (The Golden Mountains; Happy Street), film score, Op. 30 W	2005
The Youth of Maxim (The Bolshevik) (Maxim Trilogy I), film score, Op. 41i	1994
(3) Sofia Perovskaya, film score, Op. 132 (2 numbers missing)	1995
(13) Overture on Russian and Khirghiz Folksongs, for orchestra, Op. 115	1988
(4) Adagio and Allegretto (Elegy and Polka), for string quartet	1994
(3) The Vyborg District (Maxim Trilogy III), film score, Op. 50	1995
(9) Poems (6) of Marina Tsvetayeva, for alto & piano, Op. 143 (orchestrated as Op 143a)	1982
(4) Preface to the Complete Collection of My Work and Thoughts, song for bass & piano, Op. 123	2000
(2) The Man with a Gun (November), film score, Op. 53	1995
(7) The Unforgettable Year 1919, suite from the film score, Op. 89a (assembled by Atovmyan) W	1983
(3) Antiformal Rayok, satiric concert opera, for 4 basses, speaker, chorus & piano
(14) Chamber Symphony in A flat major, Op. 118a (arr. by Robert Barshai from String Quartet No 10)	1991
(4) Pieces (2) for E. Dressel's "Kolumbus", for orchestra, Op. 23	1998
(2) Requiem for Strings, Op. 144bis (arranged by Rachlevsky from String Quartet No. 15 )	1991
(31) String Quartet No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 138	1971
(41) String Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 68	1956
(8) Suite for 2 pianos in F sharp minor, Op. 6	1992
(5) Hypothetically Murdered, incidental music for circus sketch, Op. 31 (11 of 35 numbers missing)	1992
(4) Counterplan (The Passer-by), film score, Op. 33	1995
(9) Fragments (5), for small orchestra, Op. 42	1992
(2) The Fall of Berlin, suite from the film score, Op. 82a (assembled by Atovmyan)
(7) Songs (5) from the journal Krokodil, for bass & piano, Op. 121	1994
(36) Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (The First of May), Op. 20	1993
(35) String Quartet No. 6 in G major, Op. 101	1956
(42) String Quartet No. 1 in C major, Op. 49	1961
(4) Maxim, suite (from film scores Opp.45 & 89), Op. 50a (assembled by Atovmyan)	1997
(3) New Babylon, suite from the film score, Op. 18a (restored by Rozhdestvensky)	1975
(13) King Lear, incidental music, Op. 58a	1986
(3) The Great Citizen II, film score, Op. 55 (part lost)	1995
(6) Verses (4) of Captain Lebyadkin, songs for bass & piano, Op. 146	1994
(5) Five Days - Five Nights, suite from the film score, Op. 111a (assembled by Atovmyan)	1986

Dmitry Shostakovich was a Russian composer whose symphonies and quartets, numbering 15 each, are among the greatest examples of these classic forms from the twentieth century. His style evolved from the brash humor and experimental character of his first period, exemplified by the operas The Nose and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, into both the more introverted melancholy and nationalistic fervor of his second phase (the Symphonies No. 5 and No. 7, "Leningrad"), and finally into the defiant and bleak mood of his last period (exemplified by the Symphony No. 14 and Quartet No. 15). Early in his career his music showed the influence of Prokofiev and Stravinsky, especially in his prodigious and highly successful First Symphony. He could effectively communicate a melancholic depth and profound sense of anguish, as one hears in many of his symphonies, concertos, and quartets. Solomon Volkov, in his controversial -Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich explains the composer's seeming bombast as deft satire of the pomposity of the Soviet state, pointing to the "forced rejoicing" of Fifth Symphony's ending. Typical traits of Shostakovich's style include short reiterated melodic or rhythmic figures, motifs of one or two pitches or intervals, and lugubrious and manic string writing.

Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg, in 1906, and educated at the Petrograd Conservatory. The acid style of his early Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk irritated Stalin, and Shostakovich was attacked in the Soviet press. Fearing imprisonment, he withdrew his already rehearsed Fourth Symphony; his Fifth Symphony (1937) carried the subtitle "A Soviet Artist's Reply to Just Criticism." It is more ingenious than most critics have fathomed, for it managed to satisfy both the backward tastes of the party censors and those of more demanding aesthetes in the West.

The 1941 German invasion of Russia inspired the composer's Seventh Symphony, subtitled "Leningrad." Impressed by the symphony's epic-heroic character, Toscanini, Koussevitsky, and Stokowski vied for the Western Hemisphere premiere; the score had to be microfilmed, flown to Teheran, driven to Cairo, and flown out. The work became an enormous success the world over, but eventually fell into obscurity. Still, the composer had for a time become a worldwide celebrity, his picture even appearing on the cover of Time.

Shostakovich ran afoul of the government again in 1948, when an infamous decree was issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party accusing Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and other prominent composers of "formalist perversions." For some time he wrote mostly works glorifying Soviet life or history. Artistic repression diminished in post-Stalinist Russia, but curiously Shostakovich still drew in his modernist horns until the Thirteenth Symphony, "Babi Yar," a 1962 work based on poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The work provoked major controversy because of its first movement's subject: Russian oppression of the Jews.

In 1966 Shostakovich wrote his Second Cello Concerto, a work on an even higher level than his solid First, but one which has yet to capture as much attention from either artists or the public. That year, Shostakovich was diagnosed with a serious heart condition. He continued to compose, his works growing more sparsely scored and darker, the subject of death becoming prominent. His Fourteenth Symphony (1969), really a collection of songs on texts by Lorca, Apollinaire, Küchelbecker, and Rilke, is a death-obsessed work of considerable dissonance and showing little regard for the Socialist Realism still demanded by the state. Shostakovich died on August 9, 1975. ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide